Charles Schumer Quotes (257 Quotes)

When one has success, the answer is not to undo that success. It is to continue what has been done.

This Medicare Part D plan is a fiasco. It's much worse than people imagined. The problems are not simply problems of immediate implementation, but conception.

Because of that risk and its enormous consequences for generations of Americans, I cannot vote yes, ... I must reluctantly cast my vote against confirmation.

If the president sends us a nominee who is committed to an agenda of turning back the clock on civil rights, workers' rights, individual autonomy or other vital constitutional protections, there will likely be a fight.

They have riled up their base, but to feed their base the red meat it demands will hurt the president with the general public,

Senator Specter's questions aren't exactly identical to the 80-plus that I've asked of Judge Roberts, but the spirit of asking them and the need for a response is the same.

We have more oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve than we've ever had. It's full. And using about 30 or 40 million barrels for a few months to get the prices down will not hurt us strategically,

Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you are a liberal or a conservative, we know that neither this President nor prior Presidents of both parties did everything right or we would not have had a 9/11.

The evidence before us makes it hard for us to vote yes.

The SPR is intended to provide relief at times when working families are struggling to make ends meet, and to counter the price shocks that accompany severe supply disruptions. Now is undoubtedly such a time.

What people up there want to know, Democrats and Republicans, is what is the challenge ahead, how are you handling that and what did you do wrong in the past,

We take terrorism seriously and we take its victims seriously as well, ... I hope this does set a precedent.

This controversial nominee, who would make the court less diverse and far more conservative, will get very careful scrutiny from the Senate.

If we do nothing and OPEC continues to constrict the supply of oil the average American will pay 1,000 more this year than they did last year out of their pockets,

We live in a new world. It is a post-September 11 world. We have to adjust to those realities. I believe we can do both have security and liberty, the great concern of our Founding Fathers.

If ever a state deserves to have a citizen appointed to head the Department of Homeland Security, it is New York.

And I think a Barack Obama, a Bill Clinton, people who had success in these elections are Democrats who can talk in terms of values.

America is a place where we all come together. It is a place of consensus.

This bill is a full-scale retreat when it comes to environmental protection for America, ... To walk away from basic environmental protection in the name of promoting energy is a bad deal for America's future.

From conflicts of interest to inexplicable delays the actions so far of the attorney general and the Justice Department make it far less likely that the culprit will be found and that justice will be served.

If we wait too long, Windows XP will be out, and smaller companies that don't have the leverage or financing of Microsoft will be forced into years of litigation that alone could drive them out of business,

The more we hear, the more it is clear this goes way beyond Scooter Libby.

I believe the war on terror is the vital discussion of this decade and of our generation, probably. To win the war on terror, you need a good offense and a good defense. On defense, I regret to say, basically, this administration has not come close to doing what is necessary.

It is essential that all Americans take the time to honor and remember those individuals who gave their lives in defense of our liberty.

When you add it all up you are being less forthcoming ... with this committee than just about any other person who has come before us.

But I don't think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.

I think you should do one nomination at a time, even though it would be nice to know who the president is thinking of,

Microsoft was sued for doing this with Internet Explorer and driving Netscape to the brink of extinction. Now they're doing it with digital photography and in many other applications like media players,

Our measure is an anti-spiking device, ... What it does is, it says -- at times when there's an immediate shortage because of a natural disaster or a man-made disaster -- the federal government has an ace in the hole to keep prices from sky-rocketing out of control.

We are beginning to sniff the possibility of real results. But the Chinese Government has convinced us that moving to a free floating currency has been a complicated matter.

I'm strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants.

I went to the public schools myself. And they were great for me.

Everyone forgets there was a real view that downtown could just be hollowed out and nobody would want to be there ever again, ... And we decided that we had to move quickly...to give people hope so they don't get stuck in their head I got to go somewhere else.

The bottom line is that removal from the scene is a good thing. Given the padding of his resume he shouldn't stay on at FEMA.

There are serious, legal and procedural questions concerning the composition of the current board, ... It's my belief that the board did not have the legal grounds to remove David Gunn.

We tend to talk, Democrats, as a party, in legislative terms.

This questionnaire should have been completed with care and candor, but it seems to be a bit rushed and not as carefully prepared as one would hope.

These plans are so complicated and the options so varied that Albert Einstein couldn't understand them.

Nothing gets New Yorkers more angry then when diplomats think they can live by different rules than the rest of us.

When a country cannot deal with an issue in a straightforward, forthright way, when a country that has had success takes a step back because a narrow few have some ideological notion that everyone should be entitled to have any weapon they want-some of them even believe a bazooka or a tank is okay-then something is wrong.

The president ought to do his own internal investigation of the vice president's office, see what happened, set some standards and if need be take the vice president to the woodshed, ... Face the Nation.

The genie is out of the bottle, ... Once you start the trial process, you don't know where it ends. It's hard to see how it wouldn't go on forever.

I've said to the people at the White House that you say you need all the resources to fight the war overseas, but to fight the war on terror at home with no money is like saying let's fight the war in Iraq with no new money, ... It makes no sense whatsoever.

Anyone who thinks they have a monopoly on truth, and there is only one way to see the world, always gets us into trouble.

Dr. Rice's speech suggests that at the very least there was a disconnect between the public security message and the policy prescriptions top White House officials were pushing and the private warnings federal agencies were issuing about imminent threats to our homeland,

I think it's the best news that's come out of this proceeding in a long, long time,

Ideological warriors whether from the Left or the Right are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not interpret law. And that's not what any of us should want from our judges.

Parents risk seeing their children left behind in this modern economy,

The bottom line is that the administration shouldn't ignore those laws or try to change them by fiat without a thorough and open debate in the Congress.

But Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who had been among the IRS' critics for not raising the rate, said the IRS hadn't gone far enough. The IRS, ... took a good first step ... but more needs to be done.